40
●
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY.
“. . . She was made for love and capture, was Polly.”
Ink, watercolor, gouache full-length portrait on board. Published in the story Being
Engaged to Polly by Ellis Parker Butler in Good Housekeeping Magazine, November
1913, page 620. 997x724 mm; 39
1
/
4
x28
1
/
2
inches, image. Signed, Inscribed, and dated lower
right; Good Housekeeping stamp on verso and archival tape along edges attaching image
to window matte, some archival and masking tape remnants on board, framed.
[6,000/9,000]
INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY CHRISTY
,
LIKELY TO EVELYN NESBIT
:“To Evelyn with best friendship.
Howard Chandler Christy, 1910.”The artists’ model and chorus girl was Charles Dana Gibson’s
most famous “Gibson Girl” and a Floradora Girl of the eponymous Broadway musical. She became
the center of the “trial of the century” when her millionaire husband, Harry Thaw, publicly murdered
architect Stanford White in a jealous rage at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden, (then
located at the Broadway/5th Avenue/23rd Street intersection, two blocks from Swann Galleries).
Nesbit was a friend and model for Christy, both of whom were friends of the painting’s first owner,
and her resemblance to Polly suggests that she was likely the inspiration for his image of the character.
